Bottling Starts This Week; Other Cellar Work Focuses on Getting White Wines Ready to Bottle

The first wine we will bottle this season is Oskyfizzante® Pink. This wine was made last spring but we ran out of time to bottle it before harvest started. This wine is bursting with flavor and the color is brilliant. We began carbonation last week and will begin bottling this week.

We are cold stabilizing 2016 Iowa Nouveau and plan to bottle on November 2. We will filter it this week, do some final adjusting, and then get it in the bottle. It will be released on November 17.

All but one tank of wine has been racked off yeast lees and declared wine. By the end of this week, every wine will have been racked.

We have added various fining agents to the white wines to help remove any unstable protein and any remaining grape tissue from the wine. This week, we will be doing more racking (moving wine from one tank to another leaving behind any solids that settle to the bottom of the tank). We will have a plan by the end of the week to bottle each of these wines.

We think our grapes were the best quality ever this harvest. Here are some thoughts on four white wine varieties:

La Crescent has a bright nose with great citrus notes (grapefruit and lemon).

LaCrosse is a grape that has always presented issues of some sort. This year, it has a prominent pineapple and lemon zest nose. Wow!

Brianna has a big nose with peach, citrus, and tropical flavors. It is very smooth on the palate. Because we ran out of this wine last year, people have been asking for it.

Pepin will be used to make Prelude. It is bursting with flavor this year.